Metallica may join the free music movement

Metallica, among the most ardent crusaders against online music
file sharing, have indicated they might follow Nine Inch Nails and
Radiohead in releasing tracks for free over the internet.

Metallica were one of the first bands to sue people for
copyright infringement and attracted scorn from internet users for
helping shut down the peer-to-peer downloading tool Napster.

Before Napster's demise the band was among the most vocal
critics of file sharing. Its drummer, Lars Ulrich, famously showed
up at Napster's headquarters in 2000 brandishing the screen names
of 335,000 people the band said had been illegally downloading its
songs, demanding the company block those users.

But the music industry has changed tremendously in the past
eight years.

Bands and record labels long ignored the threat of the internet
and for a time refused to experiment with online distribution. But
with physical CD sales in persistent decline and legal music
downloads only partly making up for the lost revenue, the music
industry is frantically searching for a new business model.

Artists including Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead both ditched
their record labels, opting to sell their music directly to fans
over the internet.

Radiohead's In Rainbows was offered on the band's website
for two months before launching in stores and fans could download
it for free or for whatever price they were willing to pay.

Nine Inch Nails are selling their latest four-volume album,
Ghosts I-IV, through their website and the first nine tracks
are offered for free, including on BitTorrent websites that also
house reams of pirated music.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Ulrich said
Metallica's contract with Warner Music expired after their next
album.

"We want to be as free a player as possible," he said.

"We've been observing Radiohead and [Nine Inch Nails frontman]
Trent Reznor and in 27 years or however long it takes for the next
record, we'll be looking forward to everything in terms of
possibilities with the internet."

Ulrich said eight years ago the band was a fierce critic of
sharing music over the web because the members thought that sharing
should be on the artists' terms.

"Back in the day there was a much bigger question about 'On
whose terms?' " Ulrich said.

"We said, 'Wait a minute, it should be about the artist.' Then
all hell broke loose and we sat on the sidelines for a while."

For their part, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have accepted that
it is virtually impossible to stop music piracy. Instead of trying
to fight back the tide, both bands have embraced the internet and,
by giving some songs away for free, have been able to harness the
web's viral marketing power.

While many, even most, users will be content with the freebies,
even if a small percentage go on to buy the music, the bands,
thanks to the low overheads of online distribution, can turn a tidy
profit.

Nine Inch Nails announced that Ghosts I-IV, released via
NIN.com, earned the band $US1.6 million ($1.7 million). Official
sales figures for Radiohead's In Rainbows haven't been
released but when the album was released on CD in stores, after
already spreading virally online, it hit No.1 on the Billboard Top
200 chart.